Silence. Nothing but silence. Lucius and the white-haired girl stared at each other, unmoving, locked in a fragile stillness that neither dared to break. Her wide eyes shimmered with unshed tears, the dagger now resting at her side like a final line of defence.

  The only sound came from the wind, a low, mournful howl slipping through the cracks in the cellar walls like a ghost seeking entry. It whistled past old beams and between stacked crates, stirring the dust in slow, lazy swipes.

  The air was cold and damp, thick with the scent of old wood. The stone and timber did nothing to break the tension. They held it instead, pressing in close, as if the room itself was waiting.

  Though in the tension, a sudden rustle from outside made the girl flinch. Her shoulders tensed, her breath hitched, and without a word, she wrapped her arms tightly around herself. Slowly, she lowered her head, burying her face in her hands as if trying to disappear, turning away from Lucius’s gaze entirely.

  “Please don’t… kill me…” she whispered, “My blood… tastes horrible…” her voice still trembling as she fought to contain the sobs rising in her throat.

  Kill her? Blood? He thought. Those words stood still in his mind.

  Does she think I’m one of those… things?

  He had already laid down his weapon, and so did she. Even then, would she really have been down here long enough to mistake him for a threat? The way she recoiled, like a cornered animal—she was scared.

  If she believed he was one of them, then the answer to the village’s eerie emptiness was now even more confusing to him.

  Lucius, less than twenty minutes ago, had witnessed an entire army slaughtered, torn apart in a massacre so brutal it barely felt real. But if vampires had attacked this place… if they were responsible for the disappearance of the villagers, then where was the blood? Where was the carnage? The silence here didn’t match the violence he’d seen there.

  “Do… you really think I’m one of those things? I assure you that I’m not,” Lucius said, his voice trying to be soft. But it didn’t seem to reach her.

  “Liar…” she whispered, trembling as more tears rolled down her cheeks. “All vampires do is lie… and kill…” Her voice cracked as she reached for the dagger again, clutching it tightly with shaking hands, forcing herself into a defensive stance despite her fear.

  Lucius didn’t move. He could see it now—how deep her terror ran.

  Looking at her—frightened, cornered, and clutching that dagger like her life depended on it—Lucius found his thoughts drifting back to the old folk tales. The ones that spoke of fangs. Piercing, unnatural teeth used to drain the blood of their victims. Every vampire had them. It was a trait they couldn’t hide.

  Slowly, deliberately, Lucius raised a hand toward his face. The girl’s heterochromatic eyes tracked him. Yellow, red and filled with mistrust and fear.

  After a few seconds, he came up with an idea. He hooked his finger into the corner of his mouth and pulled it back, baring his teeth under the faint light coming from a lantern next to the girl.

  No fangs. Just human teeth. Rounded, blunt chompers—exactly what you'd expect from someone who ate bread and radishes their whole life, not blood.

  Despite the tears clouding her vision, the girl kept blinking. Her breath hitched as the fear in her eyes softened slightly, though the dagger in her hand still trembled.

  Lucius slowly reached up and pulled the cellar hatch shut above them, muffling the wind outside. The rusted metal hinges creaked into place, sealing them in a pocket of dim light and stale air.

  Then, with a quiet clink, he nudged his sword across the floor toward her with his hand.

  “I look for only peace… I have no intention of causing you harm,” Lucius said softly, his voice steady but laced with exhaustion. His gaze didn’t waver, not even from the trembling blade in the girl’s hands.

  After the bloodshed he’d witnessed—his comrades torn apart, the quiet village above stripped of life—he wanted no more death. None.

  He glanced briefly up at the hatch above, then looked back to the girl. “Where is your father? Or your mother?” he asked.

  “They’re dead…” she said bluntly, wiping the remaining tears from her face with the back of her hand.

  Lucius had already suspected as much—why else would she be hidden away down here, all alone? Still, he needed to ask. “Did those things attack? Is that why this place is so empty?”

  The girl shook her head. “Humans found out my father was not a human… They were afraid of him. So they chased him—and then they killed Mother. I don’t know where the humans are now…”

  Lucius kept his expression steady, though the weight of her words sat heavy in his chest. “Why did they… do that?” he asked, careful not to let the emotion slip into his voice.

  The girl blinked, her expression shifting into confusion. “You… don’t know?” she asked, like it was something obvious, like he’d just admitted that he didn’t know what bread was.

  Lucius just shook his head.

  “We are Akarin, you humans hate us… kill us… You think we’re dangerous…”

  Lucius didn’t believe this. She was clearly a human, her nose, face, arms, legs, and everything else except her eyes seemed completely human… but yet again, vampires looked similar too.

  “Dogs and wolves. Humans and… Akirin. We’re similar, aren’t we?”

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  The girl blinked, visibly surprised by his reaction. It was strange—oddly simple even. No one had ever said something like that before. And the way he said it… not with fear, not with anger, but with quiet thoughtfulness. It made her pause.

  For the first time, she truly looked at him—not as a threat, but as someone who, strangely enough, didn’t seem to want to hurt her after seeing what she really was.

  “Does my response confuse you? Is kindness your version of gold or silver?” Lucius asked with a faint smile, a light touch of humour lacing his words, given the rarity of silver and gold.

  For the first time, a flicker of warmth broke through the girl’s expression—a light smile curling at the edges of her lips.

  Lucius shifted slightly, trying to settle into a more comfortable position despite the cramped cellar’s space. The cold stone pressed against his back, and the draft of cold air from the hatch above did little to help.

  “If it’s not too much to ask…” he began, “might I stay here for the night? I’m certain you’ve noticed, but it’s unbearably cold outside.”

  There was something strangely disarming about the way he spoke—so casual, so calm. Not a flicker of deception in his voice. Can he be trusted? She wondered. But what choice did she really have? If he meant to hurt her, she doubted she’d be able to stop him, not for long.

  “Very well…” she said at last, her voice cautious but not cold. She reached into a worn sack at her side and pulled out a slightly bruised carrot, then tossed it toward Lucius. “Here, you’ll need to eat something.”

  As Lucius caught the carrot in his hand, he couldn't help but notice how perfectly it had moved through the air, clean, straight, almost as if guided. For someone so small, her aim was eerily precise.

  “My name is Lucy, by the way…” she said after a quiet beat, her voice a little softer now. “Yourself?”

  “Lucius,” he replied, offering the faintest of nods. “My name is Lucius.” Their eyes met again, less guarded now.

  “Do you honestly not know what an Akarin is?” Lucy asked, still baffled, her eyes narrowing slightly in disbelief.

  “I assume it’s those with white hair?” Lucius said.

  “Mostly, but no.” She reached beside her and picked up a worn headscarf and wrapped it around her hand, as if the action gave her something to focus on while she spoke. “You know of vampires, correct?”

  Lucius lowered his gaze to the half-eaten carrot in his hand. The memory of that massacre still lingered, vivid and bloody. “Yes… I am quite familiar with them…”

  “Well…” she began, voice quiet but deliberate, “They are descendants of us.”

  His head snapped up, eyes sharp. “What…?”

  She felt the change in the air, the tension rising. That kind of response—tight, defensive—could only come from someone who had experienced loss, real loss, at the hands of vampires. She hesitated, but continued.

  “It’s not widely known,” she said, “but there exists something in this world called ‘Mutatio-onation’… and we’re all the result of it.”

  “What…? Mutatio…-onation? How could they be descendants of you?” Lucius asked, his voice sharp with disbelief, like he was speaking to someone lost in fevered dreams.

  Lucy didn’t flinch. She looked down at her hands, fingers curling slightly as if holding onto something fragile. “It’s just a theory,” she admitted softly. “One of my relatives came up with it. It’s probably wrong, but… they’re usually right about things…”

  Lucius frowned, trying to reconcile what he’d seen—what he’d lived through—with the calm, childlike honesty in her voice. “You’re telling me that vampires… Came from those Akarin…?”

  She nodded faintly, her tone almost apologetic. “Something about… changes over generations. That some of us turned violent, unnatural. And then they became… that.”

  Lucius, still reeling from the notion, furrowed his brow. “So let’s say, for a moment, that this… Mutatio, octonation thing is real. You’ve explained vampires as your descendants. But where do I fit into all this? Humans, I mean?”

  Lucy hesitated, her hands fidgeting with the edge of her scarf. “Well… I don’t know, it’s likely that we’re just descendants of humans…”

  Her voice trailed off, uncertainty weighing heavily on every word. She didn’t sound like she was lying—just unsure, like someone piecing together a puzzle from a handful of mismatched fragments.

  “My relatives would know, though!” Lucy exclaimed, nearly bouncing where she sat. “They’re in Bohemia—well… last I remember, at least.”

  Lucius blinked, caught off guard by the sudden burst of energy in her voice. He wasn’t even sure what to say. Everything felt like too much, too fast. Still, he nodded politely, not wanting to seem rude—after all, he was essentially a guest here. But… Bohemia?

  “I’m certain they could help,” he said carefully, “but you don’t actually expect me to travel all the way to Bohemia, do you?”

  Lucy’s expression didn’t change. “Of course not,” she said, eyes shining with something between hope and certainty. “We both can!”

  Lucius raised an eyebrow, taken aback. We? She was just a girl, and he was barely more than a peasant levy—a conscript thrown into a rag-tag rushed rushed-together army. But as he considered it, Bohemia suddenly didn’t sound so far-fetched. His commander was likely dead, and with that, his obligation to his lord…

  Assuming those who knew him didn’t even know he was still alive, Lucius doubted anyone would come looking. He was a ghost now—free, in a way.

  “I could, but people need to be warned about the vampires,” he said, the heat rising in his voice. “We need to take up arms—drive them out, destroy them all.”

  Lucy shook her head slowly. “No… As much as most would like that, it won’t work. Vampires are far too fast, too strong. No army, no matter how large, could stop them. And their numbers… their numbers are too spread-out...”

  Lucius exhaled sharply, his shoulders dropping. It was frustrating—infuriating—but Lucy clearly knew more about these creatures than he did. He had no choice but to take her word for it.

  “Well…” he muttered, running a hand through his hair, “then what can we do?”

  She gave him that same hollow stare, her silver eyes unreadable in the dim light, before slowly averting her gaze.

  “There is none…” she said quietly. “So long as humans exist… so will vampires.”

  Her words hung in the air like dust in a shaft of light—bitter, inevitable. But… was that really the case? Lucius found himself staring at her, searching for a lie in her voice, some exaggeration. But there was none. Just resignation.

  Still, a knot of resistance twisted in his chest. Could that really be the truth?